An Alabama babysitter charged with kidnapping is speaking out after her arrest in Indianapolis.
Teresa McGee sat down with Fox59's Kent Erdahl for a jailhouse interview Wednesday. She said what she did wasn't kidnapping, instead, she said she's been caring for and protecting the boys from their father, long before she left the state.
"They called me mom," McGee said. "I was the closest thing they had to a mom."
Teresa McGee began caring for six-year-old Angel Montoya and his six-year-old brother Christian six months ago at the request of their father. In early November, she said the father allowed the boys to move in with her. Now she is in custody and charged with kidnapping the brothers.
chool officials in Russellville, Alabama, alerted police on Monday after the boys didn't show up for class. They also reported getting a call from Teresa in which she tried to withdraw them from school.
Kent Erdahl: "Why did you pull them out of school and take them out of state?"
Teresa McGee: "Give them a little bit of vacation. Try to seek some help for them."
The father told police he spoke to McGee and his boys several times while they were gone, but FBI agents arrested her at an apartment complex in Indianapolis on Wednesday because the father said McGee refused to bring them home. She said that's a lie and that she told him they would return Saturday.
"The dad knew where we was," McGee said. "He said he was okay with it as long as they were keeping their education up. I faxed the school work this Monday, back to their school. He knew that I'd be back, so what he done is lie."
McGee said the father was also lying when he told police the kids were staying with her simply because he needed to fix up his house.
"Let me tell you a little bit about their father. He has hit them kids, kicked them kids, threw them, pulled their hair, choked them, there's holes in the floor, no running water, no flushing toilets in that house at all," McGee said.
Kent Erdahl: "It sounds like you're telling me that you were protecting those kids."
Teresa McGee: "Yeah. That's what I was doing. All my surrounding neighbors in Alabama can tell you they lived with me for five months."
In that time Teresa said she grew close to Angel and Christian. She said she also tried contacting child services about the father.
"It was reported," McGee said. "They come in and seen holes in the floor, but they never pursued the case."
Now McGee is the one in trouble and said she can't stop thinking about the boys she thinks of as sons.
"They're probably scared," McGee said. "They cried and they told me they loved me before we got pulled apart. For what they're heading back to, I don't want them to have to suffer with their father anymore."
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